


Three for Three

by Dana



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Domestics, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:20:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dana/pseuds/Dana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Relationships are never as simple as you'd like them to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three for Three

**Author's Note:**

  * For [basaltgrrl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basaltgrrl/gifts).



> Written for **basaltgrrl** for the 2014 [Armed Bastards](http://martianholiday.livejournal.com) exchange on LJ! ♥

Relationships are never as simple as you'd like them to be. Even if it was just sex on the line, it's a bloody messy business, a good deal of it properly unpleasant. Gene should know. He's loved and he's lost and he's lost track of the score. Lost track? He just stopped counting. It got to the point where there was just no reason to keep at it, so Gene gave up.

He doesn't like to think that he's a quitter. Love opens you up and it puts you at risk, and one way or another it's always too good to be true. The promises get broken. Forever never lasts as long as you'd think it would. He was a romantic when he was young, likely because of his mam: seeing the good in a thing that should have been defined by the worst married experience of his life, that being his parents.

So no, he's not a quitter. What happened was that he grew up, and he hardened himself and his heart. He married because it was the right thing to do, not that they ever loved each other, and he knows the entire thing was cold from the start. Oh, they were good enough friends, but it wasn't enough to go on. One day, his wife left him, and it came as no great surprise. Not even the fact she left him for another bird.

No, he'd expected it to happen eventually. The only surprise was that it was later rather than sooner. Again, not even the fact she hadn't left him for a bloke.

Of course then Sam had to walk into his life and that shattered all his preconceived notions, the ones that pertained to work as well as the ones that pertained to every bloody thing else. Gene won't lie about it, he wanted Sam from the moment he saw him, needed to show him who was boss – more than that, he needed to _own_ him. It confused him but, being a pragmatist at heart, he knew it would never go anywhere. He was safe, and Sam was untouchable. Well, untouchable enough. Gene certainly found plenty of reasons to hit him, and most of them concerning Sam's bloody obnoxious mouth.

The point is, things don't always work out the way you like it.

His affair with Sam – is that even the proper word for it? Neither of them were married, and Sam wasn't even properly involved with his plonk at the time – turned into what was both the best and the worst months of his life. It definitely included a whole lot of good sex – good, no, it was bloody _great_. Sam gave back as good as he took it and he certainly took it like a bloody pro. He was a picky-pain and holier than thou, an attitude which led to getting him smacked around a good deal. Call him a bloody dirty slag and he acted like it was some sort of compliment.

It was a strange dichotomy of right and wrong (how's that for big words, Gladys?), and Gene not caring how the wrong corrupted him. How _Sam_ corrupted him. No, it was swings and roundabouts, this complicated DI of this who he shagged and who sometimes shagged him in return. He ended up needing things from Sam he never should have wanted. Sam ended up giving him things that he hadn't the right to give. And he needed them, oh, he needed them. Each time brought him that much closer to owning Sam completely.

Too much he liked, too much he wanted, and too much he got to have. Can you have too much of a good thing? You bloody well can, and Sam was a pain in the arse who complicated everything under the sun, but he was also the best.

He really stuck his foot in it, the entire mess at the train tunnel, and could have got the rest of his team killed. He didn't, hit and miss, something of a miracle. He got them out of it the way he got them into it.

That's when Gene knew Sam was a keeper.

That's when Gene knew he had to end it, because Sam never would.

So Gene gave him a push towards Annie – he knew there was some real heat there, if that kiss they'd shared said anything. In his humble opinion, it said a bloody lot.

Still, it was Sam's decision in the end that carried him away. It was better this way, for the both of them – well, all three of them, since Annie had always factored into it. Just so happened she was doing a more direct job of it now. It took Sam some time to really work up the nerve to say anything to Annie, which wasn't any sort of surprise. Not that he hadn't thought Sam had the bollocks to do it, but he was a bloody perfectionist and needed to wait for the absolute right time.

What that meant was that Gene became the odd one out, watching Sam and Annie stumble along as they started stepping out together. He felt a strange stirring when he saw them holding hands, felt something else when he caught them kissing. He tried to be a bastard and tell them there could be none of this going on at work, not that he and Sam hadn't done their fair share of messing about in Lost and Found.

He wanted to own Sam but, somehow, in letting him go, it proved just how completely Sam owned _him_.

You certainly never realise how much you appreciate having a thing around until it's up and left you and started shagging someone else. Because maybe Gene gave him a push at Annie, told him he needed to do the right thing, but it was still Sam's decision to end the thing they'd started. He didn't leave Sam. Sam's the one who left him.

So it either doesn't matter, or it matters completely, and Gene can't tell the difference. He'd thought it would be easy, moving on. Only he couldn't stop thinking about Sam, pushing all the wrong buttons. He still wanted him, and he didn't want to be the big man and admit to bygones being bygones. It didn't help that Sam was a greedy bastard who so obviously still wanted what he'd left behind. Definitely didn't help that Gene wanted it too.

And love, oh bloody hell, love never should have factored into any of it at all – but get Sam drunk enough, break his heart enough, and he just said the most amazing, and hard to believe, things.

The bed creaks, Annie shifting to his right. The air is warm, the bed warmer, and Annie sits up, slowly, her bare arm brushing against his own. She snuggles up beside him, his arm moving to accommodate her, sliding about his waist, a hand settling on her hip. The way their skin's left pressed together, it's a very good feeling. Could he get used to this? No, not now, seeing as he already has.

Reaching up with one hand, she taps the side of his head. 'What's going on in there?'

'Hmm?'

He likes it when they stay over – it makes the weekend last extra long. Sundays are especially nice, Annie and Sam teaming up to make a proper Sunday roast. So what's going on in there? A bit of everything, he guesses. Everything, perhaps more than that. More than he ever could have hoped for, he's sure. Definitely he deserves good things in his life, but Sam and Annie – and Sam with his bloody annoying streaks, too wide by far – never were something he could have imagined happening. They make him feel his age, and at the same time, they have a way of making him feel so young.

He's not said anything, he knows she's asked him a question.

Annie gives a small shrug, she'd noticed the silence as well. 'Should be getting some rest. It's late.' She's right, isn't she always? She's also a part of the equation he never could have expected, only there's no Sam without Annie, not now. Must say something about him, seeing how he likes it that way. They're a very pleasing picture, alone or together, and right now Annie's nearly glowing, basking in the orange light that's peeking in through the curtains.

'Hmph.' He looks sideways at Sam, to his left, conked out completely and sleeping the sleep of the dead. 'Gladys is getting more than enough kip for all bloody three of us.'

She laughs softly, presses a warm kiss to his shoulder, the slow sort that leaves him shivering. 'Suppose he is...'

She drifts off, slumps against him, and as her breathing evens out he guesses she's gone back to sleep. He doesn't mind it, hadn't really been in the mood for much talking. Too much thinking? He really must spend too much time with Sam, and it's only halfway to being a completely bad thing. He never would have obsessed over this sort of rubbish before he met Sam. Nor would he have found his bed overflowing with coppers, the three of them sharing one thing in common: the complete, and rather startling, state of their undress.

Of course, before he met Sam, he never could have imagined shagging a bloke, having that bloke have the bollocks to give it back to him. The fact that he's taken such a bloody liking to fraternising with his subordinates. He also couldn't have imagined this domestic nightmare he's felt himself slipping into, these last few months that have passed them by. Them spending more and more of their free time at his house, helping out, lending a hand – not always when he wants it, though somehow it always seems necessary.

Gene should ask them when they're going home, only he's afraid of the answer he'll receive.

He's the Gene Genie – he shouldn't be afraid of that. He's not afraid of anything.

Well, he could count on one hand what really frightens him, and this shouldn't be one of those things.

Annie snores very softly, a gentle rumble, hot breath smooth against his skin. His eyes are getting heavy now, the headboard cool against his back. His back – sleeping like this is gonna leave him with an awful crick in his back, but what's a bloke expected to do? He got enough of that from his missus, shouldn't those days be well over by now? Annie's weight is heavy, and real, the soft tickle of her hair brushing against bare skin. Yeah, that's real too.

Oh, what was he thinking?

There's a touch at his thigh, one finger and then another, and he knows that Sam's awake now, tracing idle patterns on his leg. He cracks one eye open, stares down at his DI. Sam's staring right back at him, such a bloody dopey expression on his face. Happy – he's happy, and why shouldn't he be? He's got his cake and he gets his girl too.

But maybe he's getting his metaphors mixed up.

He huffs a breath at Annie's hair, the bit that's too close to his mouth. 'This is all your fault, you know.'

The slightest twitch of a grin, the first soft flash of his teeth. 'Yeah, I guess it is.'

'Sam, I...'

'Don't worry about it, Guv.' He shrugs, shifts onto his side, thumb grazing a bit too close for comfort, Gene's nether regions giving a mighty twitch. 'We don't have to talk about it.'

No, they don't – and on any other day, Gene wouldn't want to. He's so out of sorts right now, he knows there's no backing out of it now... something needs to do be done. Not sex, they'd done that already, other than those first stirrings, he's not quite in the mood for it yet – that, and he's half-buried by his WDC, who's very deeply asleep.

He needs to say something, even if he ends up regretting it. Because he's not afraid. Not of that, not of anything. Well, almost anything.

So he nods slowly, careful not to jostle Annie. Oh sod it all, what the bloody hell have the two of them done to him? That shouldn't have mattered. None of this should matter. Only it does, and there's no getting out of it... he's properly stuck.

'Yeah, we... we do.'

Sam pushes himself up, wriggles a bit as he twists about, sits at Gene's side, back to the headboard. He's clear as day in the low light, Gene's eyes having adjusted ages before. 'Go on then,' he says, and that's a bloody order if Gene's ever heard one before. It's simple, and it's hard to deny – he should say something about Sam and his actual place, but there was an edge to his few words that brooked no argument. As though Sam might just have it in him to be a decent DCI.

Annie's weight is heavy to his right, and Sam's barely touching him to his left. Relationships are never as simple as you'd like them to be, and Sam's the most complicated bloke he's ever known. Add in Annie, and Gene just doesn't know what to do. Not now, maybe not ever.

He doesn't know what he'd do without them, seeing as how he's got so bloody used to having them both around. They'll get married eventually, right? Married, and they'll leave him, and then –

Not now? Oh, definitely not ever.

He should be okay with that, with them needing him for as long as it's necessary, something so much bigger than the here and now. He must be as greedy as Sam is, because the whole of the here and now just isn't enough. It's worked out like a right treat for Sam, and Gene can only hope he'd be so lucky.

He forces a laugh, feels a trickle of sweat rolling down his brow. He reaches up to wipe it away with the back of his left hand. 'Oi, no need to rush me, Marjorie.'

Sam's grin has broadened, and he's leaned the whole of his body that much closer to Gene's, hovering warmth, the almost brush of his skin. 'Just want you to know I'm all ears.'

All ears – Sam always listens to him, except when he doesn't. He's caught in a landslide now, he's losing himself, there's nothing to grab onto and Gene knows he's falling fast. 'How long can this go on?' He whispers it, he knows he hadn't meant to – to whisper it, to speak it at all, who can tell – and all he's left knowing is there's no taking it back.

'I... oh.' Sam leans into the bed frame, tilts his head back, and Gene's eyes slide upwards, the curve of his shoulder, the line of his neck, the soft smile that's settled onto his lips. 'Annie and I were thinking we should get a flat together. You know, to get out of your hair.'

Gene blinks. That's no sort of proper answer, seeing how Sam gets his knickers in a bunch when it comes to clear lines of communication. 'Daphne, what the – '

'What do you think about that, Guv? Does that sound like a good idea?'

He could have laughed, right in Sam's face. 'It's a sodding awful idea, and you bloody well know it! Next thing you'll tell me is you mean to ask her to marry you, and if you drop all your spare dosh into a better flat, just how do you expect to accomplish that?'

Grinning even more now, the smary bastard. He could kiss him, or hit him, and either way he'd wake Annie. 'I dunno. You tell me.'

Right, he will. 'You want that sort of thing to happen, you need to be smart. Getting married is a big thing, Sam – ' A big thing, and it needs to happen for all the right reasons, because the wrong ones leave you kicked to the curb, left in the cold. Left in the cold? No, cold from the start.

'Like moving in together, right?'

'Exactly. So, if I were you – and honestly, I'd never want to be you, your head would be a bloody awful place to live inside – I'd put that money aside and save up for a proper house. You know, the sort that's big enough to support a growing family.'

He still looks amused, bordering on smug. 'But what should Annie and I do in the interim, Guv?'

'You should – '

Annie groans. 'Oh bloody hell, shut up. I'm trying to get some kip here, Guv.'

Great, she's awake now. Sam chuckles, bites at his lower lip. 'Don't interrupt him, Annie... this is getting good.'

She shifts about. 'Oh whatever.' She presses a number of kisses to Gene's shoulder, up his neck. More heat, so much of it he shivers. 'What's he going on about then?'

'Oh, how we shouldn't get a flat together. He thinks it'd be a much better idea if we moved in with him instead.'

Annie jerks up, wide awake now. 'What?'

Right, getting back on track. 'Well, I've the spare room – you'd both be welcome to it. The missus is gone, and you both bloody well know I'm no good on my own. So, no one would think anything about it – well, other than the fact that you two bloody saints are taking care of your poor divorced Guv, seeing how he can't do it himself.'

'Oh, the spare room?' Annie moves some more. Gene's just really realising all he's said, he'd really got into it. He's trapped in the moment now, between a rock and a hard place – well, his WDC and his DI, so it's nearly the same.

'Yeah, I mean – you wouldn't have to...' Annie's hand is sliding down his side. Sam's hand is resting at Gene's thigh.

'We'd pay rent.' That, from Sam, pressing a warm, wet kiss to his jaw, mouth wandering its way backwards and taking a nip at his earlobe. Nips at it, then sucks at it, and Gene bites at his lip to keep from moaning. 'Help out about the place, you know?'

Oh, it's too much now, and Gene groans, Annie's mouth swallowing that up, the hot slip of her tongue. Sam's hand, fumbling with Annie's, taking hold of him. Oh bloody hell, what's he got himself into now? He groans again, hips bucking, Annie smothering a laugh against his shoulder, and now it's Sam's mouth that's occupying itself with his own.

'Doesn't... answer my... oh bloody hell, you two! My question though, does it?' He's trying to make a point here. He's lost all cohesion and this has got way too out of hand, oh bloody hell, their _hands_.

'How long do I think this will go on?' Sam mutters, lips damp against Gene's. 'Forever seems like a good place to start.'

Forever never lasts as long as you'd think it would, only now it's Sam who's putting it all on the line... Sam, who's a nitpicky control freak who never backs down on his promises. Sam, who's warm and real and kissing him now, kissing him with tooth and tongue, swallowing Gene up, and all the while like he never means to stop.

Gene groans into that kiss, gives back with all he can, runs his hand up to press at the back of Sam's neck, pressing in that much more. Forever – yeah, maybe it's an optimistic delusion for him to have, but he should be allowed the one. It'll be messy. It'll be perfect. It'll be complicated and maybe he'll sometimes want to take it all back. He moans as Annie giggles, they're both trying to kiss him at the same time now.

What's he got himself into now... what's he got himself into forever?

'Good answer?' Sam asks him, when he can.

Gene nods, flipped upside down, heat surging through him, and him forgotten how to think. They're pulling him apart, he won't be lasting long. 'Yeah, yeah – it bloody well is.' Oh well, look at that – talking's not as hard as he thought it would be.

He doesn't know what the score is, now, but he does know that he's won. Won, because Sam's getting him to shift about, guiding him – Annie's fingers, warm at his neck. He's in the best of hands now, between these two.

Winning, right? Definitely won something he never could have hoped for.

Three for three, maybe? Yeah, that sounds about right.

–

Something's changed, something he doesn't see until they're making a frantic dash to get out of the house on time, Sam laughing and jamming toast into his mouth, Annie rolling her eyes as she artfully balances all three of their cups of tea. 'Yours, and – oh bloody hell, Sam, could you try a bit harder to not spray crumbs when you eat?'

Sam looks absolutely mortified, the bloody girl. 'Sorry,' he says, at least once he's swallowed the offending matter down. Annie shoves his cup at him, not quite scowling at him now. It softens even more as Sam accepts his cup of tea, blossoms into a smile. Between that and the faint blush clinging to Sam's cheeks, what the bloody hell is he going to do with the two of them?

What the bloody hell are they going to do with _him_?

'You alright there, Gene?' It still catches him off guard when she calls him that. Suppose he ought to get used to it, even if he is somewhat slow on the uptake this morning. Seeing as the change that's been made, that's one small truth he can't deny – but he can blame that on the both of them, that and so much more.

When they put their minds to it, they really do know how to wear a man down. The results have been mostly positive so far, and it leaves Gene in a haze of near optimistic bliss. Sod it all, he's bloody well cracked and gone round the bend.

'We...' She looks at Sam, discreetly brushing crumbs off his shirt, and then to Gene, who's making a show of not acting like he's perturbed at all, quietly sipping at his tea. 'We'll work it all out, you know that, right? We're gonna be okay.'

She'd say that, of course she would. If it goes completely tits up, she'll still have Sam.

'Course we will, petal.' He's still not completely sure they won't one day get tired of him, but he supposes that's what time is for. And this once, he's not betting his all on his gut instinct. All the things he knows about relationships, what life has given him time and time again – the lessons he's learned whether he wanted them or not, turning him somewhat jaded, and that's a bloody understatement – just this once, he'd like to be proven wrong.

Sam's beaming like he's the real winner in the situation, and of course the greedy little bastard would think that. Of course, being greedy doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It has some definite perks.

'It's good?'

He downs his tea, keeps on thinking. They'll ease into it, he supposes. Make the right comments at the right time, and just like that, ease on into the rest of their lives. 'Yeah, guess it is for now. Come on, let's get going. Long day ahead of us, done enough slacking about.' He's out into the living room in a flash, Sam quickly gulping his tea down. Annie's follows out at a more leisurely pace.

Sam slides on into his jacket, kisses him in the hallway. Then, still beaming, he kisses Annie as well. Got just what he wanted, and after all that time. Gene's grin is undeniable. Maybe always getting his way is also a very good thing. There might just be a few more things he could learn from Sam.


End file.
